Tag Archives: classes

Memories………

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Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash

Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash

Back in the day, it was fine to sort of know what was going on. You got word banks, worksheets…basically, someone else did most of the work for you. Now you’re expected to actually know the teeny details about something you may not understand, so how do you do that?

This very brief post by Jeff Haden on Inc about the the work Adam Grant has done on memory research,  “How to Remember Anything You Really Want to Remember, Backed by Science” gives you the 3 simple (not easy!) steps to learning for remembering.

There’s a saying in medicine: See one; Do one; Teach one. Watch someone do a procedure. Do it yourself. Show someone else how to do it. When you can teach someone else how to do something, whether it’s to suture up a deep cut or solve a chemistry problem, it means you understand the mechanics of HOW to do it. It means you know it well enough to remember to do it correctly when it counts.

What does “working” mean?

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Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

What does it mean when an instructor tells you to “work”? Does it mean spend more time? Are we talking about how you spend your time? Probably it means both, but how should you spend your time working on your classes?

In this article by Darius Foroux, he talks about steps to use your time to learn more efficiently. Who doesn’t want to spend less time to learn more? Mostly, it comes down to getting out of your own way, focusing on what you’re doing and not half-a*}ing it.

Highlighting your text book instead of reading it for understanding (and being able to explain it to someone else) is only helping you learn how to color in straight lines.

Science writing

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The one elective I suggest all biology majors (and really, everyone!) is English 416: Science Writing, which will taught by Dr. Womack in Spring 2020. You know how important science writing is because you’ve been reading it in your textbooks. What makes a textbook bad? When the writing so dense you can’t understand what the author is saying.

This article, published in Nature, discusses good science writing vs. the turgid stuff you turn in on lab reports trying to make it sound like you know way more than you really do and refusing to admit what your data are (the experiment was a failure and my data don’t make any sense).

What scientists can expect when dabbling in science writing

It can be a difficult career path, but also rewarding and worthwhile, says Brittney G. Borowiec.